Scales
Scales is intellectual curiosity given the energy of a kid and let loose. Young and impetuous, she pokes her nose into anything that she sees. Her curiosity serves her well in her job as a medic. It has driven her to learn much more about the structure and repair of robots than what she knew as part of her original programming. Unfortunately, it also causes her to drive people nuts with her incessant questions. Her unusual structure was a matter of whimsy on her creator's behalf, being based off of the mythical dragon, but suits her well. While small and young, she does have some bite when it's necessary, using claws and teeth and a flaming breath weapon, as well as a sting that stuns opponents. However, she prefers to avoid conflicts involving guns and other weaponry. When she needs to, she can also transform into a tape and hide or sulk or carry information. While some may wonder at a medic with claws, she can actually retract them for manipulating delicate items, like circuitry. Her wings and short fin on her back have small photon collection units embedded in them, to utilize the very dragon-like habit of sunbathing. History MUX History: Scales is a Blaster/Wheeljack creation they put together on Earth in 1999. After the difficulties with the Dinobots' limited intelligence, Wheeljack had the idea to copy the human growth process: set a good base but leave the details unfinished, to be filled in by experience. He succeeded- Scales was intelligent but immature, similar to a bright child. Her rampant curiousity is a feature, not a bug; it drives the young medic to learn. Unfortunately, neither Blaster nor Wheeljack accounted for one part of the human model: the need for a responsible adult to be a role model and teach the child. Most of the older Autobots were busy with fighting Decepticons. The one Autobot that had time for the young tape was Discord, a paranoid ex-Decepticon barely trusted by anybody else. During the Timewarp TP, Scales was briefly replaced by an older self that had spent a little too much time with Discord and was surly, sarcastic, and bitter. Fortunately, after everybody was returned to their proper time and selves Scales met the Dinobot leader, Grimlock. As Scales is vaguely the right shape, flies, and breathes fire, Grimlock accepted her as an honorary Dinobot. Few Autobots would consider the Dinobot leader an ideal role model, but Scales adores him. She gets along with the other Dinobots about as well as anybody can (nobody gets along with Slag), and can be found at the Dinocave if she's not busy in a repair bay, often sunbathing alongside Snarl. Scales often helped Daniel work on his homework. She eventually branched out to a middle school in Colorado, Volk Middle School, appearing at recess and after school. She enjoyed the company of young humans and found schoolwork a great way to learn, so kept the habit until the school closed in 2009. When the Decepticons laid siege to Valvolux in 2018, Scales was one of the medics sent to aid the city. She was among the party that went underground and discovered Bulwark. Soon after, she was the first medic on the scene when Dust Devil was poisoned by Rartorata and led the work on the antidote. The time spent at Valvolux forced her to grow up a lot, but she was still capable of squealing in delight when she saw Bulwark's dragon form. In 2019, with Ratchet out of service following an attack by Nightbird, Scales was put in charge of the Iacon Medical Center. OOC Notes Scales is friendly, helpful, and a little hyper by nature. When balked repeatedly, though, she can sulk with the best of them, often turning into a tape so she won't have to talk to anybody. She has a lot of cat-like mannerisms. Scales often greets (transformer) friends by attempting to pounce on them. This is enough to knock over a minibot (like Pipes), but barely moves anybody else. Logs 2000 * March 15 - "Silvertail's Departure," Silvertail departs for Cybertron with the body of her 'father.' 2002 * September 11 - "Scales vs. Warthog" - Scales beats up a Decepticon! 2017 * December 03 - "Aboard the Disco Star" - The Fallen invades the Disco Star. 2018 * 6/15 - "Dungeon Crawl Part 1" - Heroic Autobots head beneath Valvolux. *6/18 - "Dungeon Crawl Part 2" - Heroic Autobots beneath Valvolux. *6/19 - "Dungeon Crawl Part 3" - Heroic Autobots beneath Valvolux. * 28 June - "Battle against the Pod Creatures" - Last time, the Autobots found a hatch out of the repair bay. It led down to a tunnel carved right through the rock. They ran from some ominous buzzing and ended up here, in a chamber with pods that probably contain living creatures. *30 June - "The Energon Stream" - The Autobots below Valvolux investigate a chamber giving off a strange glow. * 3 July - "The Dying Mech" - The Autobots find a dying prisoner. * 4 July - "Fight the Mutants" - Heroic Autobots face twisted mutants beneath Valvolux. * July 17 - "Poisoned!" - Dust Devil is poisoned! Scales and Backblast start looking for antidotes. Bulwark decides to go to the source. Jul 17 - Dust Devil poisoned >*The camera shows Scales, perched on a box of supplies in order to make her report. She's sitting, wings folded close and tail tucked around her paws.*< "The big bug monster that's been stalking Dust Devil came back. It stung him and left some kind of poison in the wound. Grimlock drove the thing off before it could do anything else. "Dust Devil said it wants the Oracle of Primus, and he thinks it's talkin' about that cube that it wanted before. It's supposed to have an antidote." *Scales pauses to rustle her wings and the tip of her tail flips back and forth.* "I've slowed the poison down by setting up an energon transfusion, but the toxin corrupts the energon it's in to keep spreading, so unless it's neutralized or completely purged, it's going to keep going until it kills him. I'm analyzing some of it to try ta come up with something better, but it's about as complicated as you'd expect, so it'll take time." She looks ready to finish the report, but hesitates and adds, "Dust Devil -should- stay in medical and not go out doin' stuff, so if ya see him wandering around, he needs to get back to bed." Jul 27 - Update on Dust Devil *It's Scales once again, sitting in front of the camera on a crate* An update on Dust Devil's condition: I managed to develop a good enough antidote to keep him from dying, but he's suffering from some side effects. And when we tried letting him have some regular energon to see if he could, it didn't go well. The antidote causes some of the poison to precipitate out, which we've been removing using a filter. When clean energon is added, it gets converted- turning into the muddy stuff with the precipitate in it. So it's back to the lab for now. In the meantime, he's awake and doing alright, but not talking and definitely not ready to go back into the field. Backblast and Imager have been helping to work on this. We'll keep at it. >*Scales reaches forward with a paw and turns off the feed.*< July 30 - "Time to Call in Some Help" Backblast and Scales are stumped, so they ask an expert to help. Aug 01 - Dust Devil cleared for duty *Just a voice post, this time.* Thanks to everybody's efforts, Dust Devil's cured and back on his feet. He's cleared for his usual duties. Scales out. Aug 15 - Windblade is back *It's Scales, reporting in from Metroplex!* Okay, so, a lot happened. Dust Devil found some Decepticons underground and grabbed me since I was available to help him check it out. It turned out to be Megatron and Shockwave taking Windblade down to see Trypticon. The Decepticons had to fight some of the underground monsters, including a really big driller! An' that meant Dusty and I could sneak into Trypticon. We find Windblade inside, talking to Banshee. Windblade said that if Banshee could promise not to make Trypticon fight anymore, she'd teach Banshee how to talk to him. An' she did. An' there was this inhibitor circuit that we took off, so Trypticon doesn't have to follow orders anymore if he doesn't wanna. Anyway, after that, Banshee had Trypticon come up and put in a big show, but he didn't attack any of us. Shockwave did, though. Dust Devil got hurt- I didn't see where he went, but I think he's still alive back on Cybertron. The Dominicons were there and they took out Megatron AND Shockwave. And then Metroplex brought us back to Earth and took the Dominicons with us. So, Windblade is safe and back on Earth, and if you're on Cybertron y'might want to keep an eye out for Dust Devil. And the Dominicons helped us get away. August 15 - "Saying Hi to Snarl" Cobra interrupts Scales and Snarl chatting in the desert. August 21 - "Who Is Bulwark?" Windblade asks about Valvolux, and Scales is happy to share what she knows. October 31 - "Tape Talk" Scales visits Harmonex again, and Soundwave is still there. At least they don't fight. November 7 - "Valvolux Briefing" Elita One gets briefed on certain aspects of Bulwark. November 08 - Fallen Attack on Retoris *"I'll Huff and I'll Puff" - The Fallen comes a-calling in Retoris (Fallen POV). *"Facing The Fallen" - The Fallen has come to Retoris to make his demands of the Autobots. The Autobots defy him. (Autobot POV) November 15 - Elita One's Condition >*Scales reports in from the Sparkplug Center, having found a spot where there's actually nobody behind her for once.*< There's good news and bad news on Elita's condition. She was very badly damaged right when she was actually using the Timestopper, and the result is that most of her body is now frozen in time, as if the Timestopper had been used on -them-. The good news is that she's not getting any worse. The bad news is that there's no way to do full repairs with her frozen in place, and she can't use her own Timestopper to try to unfreeze herself. Dust Devil's offered to try powerin' the Timestopper to get Elita's body unstuck. He knows the risks and he's willing to try it. BUT, I'd want somebody on hand to monitor Dust Devil and be ready to cool him down, and even if it works, I'd also want more than one person actually present to work on Elita. She took a massive amount of damage, an' that's not easy to fix even without the time complication. *Scales pauses to huff a little puff of smoke.* Me an' Backblast got to know Dust Devil's systems pretty well when we were workin' on him in Valvolux. I'd feel a whole lot better if somebody who's worked on Elita before were here for this. *The little dragon ends the report.* December 16 - "Commanding the CAT" Elita has her covert team. Now, who do you put in charge in a team of intelligence agents? 2019 * January 2 - "How Do You Solve a Problem like Soundwave?" - Soundwave is hiding out in a bar after a misunderstanding with his fellow Decepticons. * January 5 - "Keeping Busy" - For how much he goofs off, Dust Devil has been busy lately. * January 23 - "CAT's away" - A team of covert Autobots start their mission - which begins with infiltrating Decepticon territory. * January 30 - "Up the Tower" - The CAT sneaks through Decepticon territory to hack a communications tower. * February 6 - "The Next Move" - The information is in, so the CAT plans its next move. * March 27 - "CAT: Charlie Foxtrot" - Wreckers team up with the CAT to invade a flying fortress, but the princess is in another castle... * April 9 - "CAT reassessment" - After running into the trap previously, the team assembles to figure out what to do next. * Apr 21 - "We've Got an Epidemic" - Imager comes into Medical with some personal issues that are much bigger than she thinks. * April 24 - "The Doctors Are In" - As news of the problem spreads, Autobot medics assemble and look for the source. * May 15 - "The CAT Catches Its Rat" - The CAT knows who Double Tap intends to hit and waits for him to arrive. Jun 04 - Soundwave and Imager Scales is in Iacon Medical, with Inferno standing behind her. "Okay, so, I missed that more people hadn't heard about this," the tape confesses. "Soundwave an' Imager are both locked up in Harmonex right now. I mean, literally- with Harmonex under a shield an' them inside, nobody c'n get at 'em. But also, they went there and fought each other an' locked up physically, too. Nucleosis end stage." She pauses to gather her thoughts. "Dust Devil was th'one that told me 'bout it, an' he had an idea t'rig up some kinda VR t'see if they're still active an' aware inside. An' that'd be really useful, 'cause we'd also find out if they're still angry or if that effect doesn't persist. That'd be useful t'know. So I've been workin' on a system t'do that between other things, but we still need t'figure out how t'get inside Harmonex t'try it." Scales glances back at Inferno. "I think that's about it. Scales out." Jun 12 - Medical Report: Soundwave Experiment >*This report is sent to medical. A private copy is also sent to Ratchet, with addendums. This is a verbal report with accompanying data drop*< Scales voice: "Okay. Dust Devil had an idea to set up a Virtual Reality and see if we can get Soundwave and/or Imager connected to it, to check their status and, if they're aware, to make sure they don't go crazy bein' stuck in one place alla time. I got one put t'gether, Backblast got us into Harmonex, and we tried it out on Soundwave. It worked. We learned that they're not really aware of time passing while they're stuck and not bein' interacted with, so at least we don't hafta worry about that. In the meantime, I got a lot of data about Soundwave's current condition- there's somethin' in his and Imager's energon other than just the nucleosis stuff, so I brought back some samples for study to go with all the other information." >*Accompanying data drop includes scans of Soundwave and Imager, notes on the experiment, and transcription of Soundwave's self-reported symptoms.*< ;Report addendums --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The private report to Ratchet has two addendums. The first is a 360 degree pan around Soundwave, showing off his new paint job in loving detail, with the note that he was like that when they got there so they have no idea who did it. The second is a brief snippet from the conversation with Soundwave via Virtual Reality: Backblast saying, "When we finally string up the bastard who caused this, I'll make sure - no matter what state you're in - you get to see it." And Soundwave replying, "Wake me when you find pharma. I will destroy his mind from the inside." This has the note that Scales is a bit concerned by this, but has no idea who to talk to or what to do about it. August 8 - "New Director" With Ratchet down, Chromia puts Scales in charge of Iacon Medical Center. August 14 - "Fix Him While We Can" With Ratchet lying unconscious after a vicious attack, Dust Devil and Scales decide to get all his maintenance done while he's stationary. Aug 15 - Iacon Medical Update *Scales appears on the screen, a couple of grease smudges on her draconic snout.* Okay. Inferno, I had some free time this afternoon, so even though I know you've got the big repairs, I caught Ratchet up on all the maintenance he's been putting off. An' lemme tell you, it was a lot. Hopefully with his systems doin' better, that'll make things easier when it comes t'putting on the new pieces. Dust Devil was a big help in getting parts for me. I'm gonna get cleaned up and catch a quick nap. Here in a coupla hours, we're gonna start the treatment on the first nucleosis group, so it's gonna be real busy in here. Scales out. Aug 27 - Nucleosis cure progress *Scales appears on the screen in the Iacon Medical Center, datapadd in hand.* Okay, we're getting close to done on this. The last group of ordinary infections are treated and are just being held for testing and recovery now. We'll have them cleared out by tomorrow, barring any new complications. That leaves Imager and Omega Supreme. I didn't detect any new chemicals in Imager's energon after she was retrieved, but there's still the gunk she got while fightin' Soundwave. That'll be a bit more delicate than the usual infections with all the extra energy potential. And with Omega... well, we needed to get enough counteragent made. That's finally stockpiled, so now we need to get him to hold still long enough to get treated. So, if Spike and Cerebros are available, I'd like to get Fortress Maximus to help- he might be one of the few big enough to talk to Omega Supreme face-to-face. Anybody else who can help with keeping the big guy cool during the treatment would also be appreciated. Thanks! Scales out. August 27 - "Red Alert Checks on Medical" Red Alert makes sure Ratchet is okay and no funny business is happening while he's around. August 29 - "Curing Imager" Imager finally gets cured of nucleosis. September 22 - "The Fallen Attacks Iacon- Dominicon Perspective" The Fallen TP Finale -- the big bad himself shows up looking for his Blaster. September 24 - "One Missing Dragon" After The Fallen's attack, Scales has been hiding. But there are still people looking for her. Sep 28 - Delivery from GI Joe Text post from Scales: General Hawk from GI Joe showed up at Iacon with a truck full of charged car batteries to help us out. He said that if we can provide a list of parts, he'd be willing to see what they can spare. Also, he plans to stay the day to see the city before going home. Scales out. October 1 - "Being in Charge Is Hard" Scales and Stormfront chat a bit before returning to the Medical Center and the people there. October 6 - "Working on Kodiak" Kodiak is back on his feet but still needs to get used to his new alt form. It's running a bit rough. October 14 - "Arrivals, New and Old" Iacon sees some new faces and some old ones that haven't been back in a while. October 15 - "Growing Pains" Some of the younger Cybertronians work on finding their way. November 5 - "Ask an Expert" Dust Devil continues to work with Jetfire in the aerospace division. Scales comes by with a medical and ethical problem. November 20 - "With the Benefit of Hindsight" Scales, Dust Devil, and Spike all work to make the forcefield safer and teach the younger Bots about paperwork. On IRC, Deathsaurus laments his choices. Nov 26 - Safety Measures It's Scales, reporting in from Iacon's Gates by the broken forcefield generator. "Hi! Me, Spike, an' Dust Devil thought it would be good to have some safety measures built in to keep people from gettin' hurt as bad as Trailbreaker was if the they're workin' the shields and it overloads again. We've put together some breakers and batteries an' put a roof over 'em to keep the weather out. If there's an overload, some of it should drain into the batteries an' the rest will trip the breakers. There still might be some sparks, but nothin' like what it was before." She moves a bit to show off their work. "Sorry we didn't think of it sooner. Scales out." Players Scales is an OC and is played by her creator. Category:Autobots Category:Autobot Intelligence Category:Bot-Tapes Category:Characters Category:Covert Action Team Category:Medics Category:Mini-Cassettes Category:OCs Category:Transformers